Good to know this is all a hoax and isn't actually happening. 

The world's 15 hottest sites on Tuesday were all in Australia

Australia was home to all 15 of the world's hottest temperatures on Tuesday, a feat it may well repeat on Wednesday and beyond as a huge swath of the nation bakes in 45-degree-plus heat.

A slew of records have already fallen during the current heatwave and more are likely to be broken before a cool change breaks up the furnace later this week.



According to the El Dorado Weather site, the warmest 15 places on the planet in the past 24 hours were all in Australia. These ranged from Tarcoola in inland South Australia, which reached 49.1 degrees, to Yulara in the Northern Territory at 46.1 degrees in 15th slot.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the 49.1 degrees at Tarcoola was a record reading for that site.

Australia often dominates heat temperatures in summer, given that rival southern hemisphere sites are mostly in South America and South Africa where readings above 40 degrees are not so common.

The world's hottest places in the 24 hours to 11am (AEDT) on January 16:

Tarcoola (Australia) 49.1°C
Port Augusta Aws (Australia) 49°C
Woomera Aerodrome (Australia) 48°C
Olympic Dam Aerodrome (Australia) 47.9°C
Hay Airport Aws (Australia) 47.8°C
Oodnadatta Airport (Australia) 47.7°C
Marree Aero (Australia) 47.6°C
Coober Pedy Aws (Australia) 47.5°C
Warburton Airfield (Australia) 47.3°C
Ivanhoe Aerodrome Aws (Australia) 46.9°C
Wilcannia Aerodrome Aws (Australia) 46.6°C
Leigh Creek Airport (Australia) 46.3°C
Wulungurru (Australia) 46.2°C
Moomba Airport (Australia) 46.1°C
Yulara Aws (Australia) 46.1°C

Much of the NSW Riverina and most of Victoria's north can expect 45 to 47 degrees on Wednesday, with little relief in daytime maximums until Friday or Saturday.

By 1.45pm Wednesday AEDT, all the mainland states had reached 40 degrees, White Cliffs in western NSW hit 48.2 degrees, Victoria's Swan Hill reached 45.9 degrees and Tarcoola was anything but cool at 48.4 degrees.

According to the bureau, January 12-15 have already made it into the list of top 10 warmest days on record for Australia for area-averaged maximum and mean temperatures.

Health warnings

Health authorities in several states have issued warnings for people to take care of themselves, their relatives, neighbours and their pets as heatwave impacts can build over several days.

An added threat in Sydney will be the high ozone air pollution expected across the city in coming days.

Richard Broome, director of environmental health at NSW Health, said "ozone can irritate the lungs, and people with asthma need to follow their Asthma Action Plan and have their relieving medication with them".

"Ozone levels are higher outdoors than indoors, and generally highest in the afternoon and early evening, so limiting time outdoors during the heat of the day and in the evening helps people to not only keep cool but to limit their exposure to ozone pollution," Dr Broome said in a statement.

Those most at risk were residents with asthma and other respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and anyone experiencing severe respiratory distress should seek immediate medical help, the statement said.

The coming cool change will shift a blocking high in the Tasman Sea, which has helped inland temperatures build up in recent weeks.

Another band of heat will follow by early next week, lifting temperatures in Sydney's west back towards the high 30s, although the warmth is unlikely to match that of the current heatwave, Mr Cronje said.

https://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/the-world-s-15-hottest-sites-were-...

Our oceans broke heat records in 2018 and the consequences are catastrophic

Rising temperatures can be charted back to the late 1950s, and the last five years were the five hottest on record

Bleached coral in Guam. The heating of oceans is causing tremendous problems for sea life. Photograph: David Burdick/AP

Last year was the hottest ever measured, continuing an upward trend that is a direct result of manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

The key to the measurements is the oceans. Oceans absorb more than 90% of the heat that results from greenhouse gases, so if you want to measure global warming you really have to measure ocean warming.

There are other ways to measure climate change, but none are as convincing as the oceans. Air temperatures are most commonly reported in the media as evidence of global warming, but the problem with these is they are very erratic. While there is certainly a long-term trend of higher air temperatures, any given year may be warmer or colder than the last.

So oceans are key, and they are telling us a clear story. The last five years were the five hottest on record. The numbers are huge: in 2018 the extra ocean heat compared to a 1981-2010 baseline amounted to 196,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules. The current rate of ocean warming is equivalent to five Hiroshima-size atomic bombs exploding every second.

The measurements have been published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences in an article by Lijing Cheng, the lead author, and his colleagues from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in China. His collaborators, of which I am one, included researchers from around the world. The article charts ocean heat back to the late 1950s, showing a steady increase.



Ocean warming is incontrovertible proof of global warming, and there are real consequences to a warming ocean. Firstly, warmer water expands, and this expansion causes sea levels to rise. Approximately a third of the rise in ocean waters is a result of the heat absorbed by the oceans. Scientists expect about one metre of sea level rise by the end of the century, which would be enough to displace 150 million people worldwide.

The warming waters also make storms more powerful. In the US recently, we have seen hurricanes pass over extremely warm ocean waters, which has supercharged them and increased the damage they cause. Other kinds of storms are also being made stronger. Heavier downpours of rainfall are increasing flooding around the world. Simply put, our emissions of greenhouse gases have caused loss of life and property. We are all responsible, but the people who have denied the science and the solutions own a special responsibility that history will judge harshly.

It isn’t just humans that are suffering and will suffer more in the future. The heating of oceans is causing tremendous problems for sea life, particularly coral reefs. If we continue to warm the planet, we can expect to lose much of these reefs. We can also anticipate reductions in fish and sea life populations.

We scientists sound like a broken record. Every year we present the science and plead for action. Not nearly enough is being done. We can still tackle climate change, but we must act immediately. We have the means to make a difference, we lack only the will.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2019/jan/1...

Captain Nemo wrote on Jan 17^th, 2019 at 10:38am:

Look, The Grauniad is such a laughably tendentious and woke rag, I wouldn't credit anything it says without about six second opinions.

And of course you never find anything as tendentious and woke as The Grauniad, so that's that. I look at their website just to remind me what the mad lefty progs and unmoored woke 'activists' are contemplating next. It's been a parody for decades, The Grauniad.

Oh look youtube. That's it then it must be true.

oh dear. back to the CSIRO predictions?

Oh dear getting further and further from the Climate Change bit.